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Saturday, September 2, 2017

Save a Picture from Google Photos to your Device

I have a beautiful photo of a waterfall in Pennsylvania. It's in my Google Photos library. I took it with my Canon camera. How can I use it as the wallpaper for my iPhone (or Android) phone?

I can see it on either of my phones, but it doesn't show up when I try to select a photo for wallpaper, because the wallpaper setting is only seeing the pictures that reside on the device. So, I need to get it down from the cloud (my Google Photos account) to the camera roll (or gallery) on the device. There are lots of apps that only work with photos on your device, so even if you don't care about wallpaper, this is a good thing to learn.

Here's how to do it:

Open Google Photos and view the desired photo

tap the 3-dot menu

Android: Save to Device

iPhone: Download

Assuming you have a decent Internet connection, that photo is now on your device and it will show up as an option for Wallpaper.

This is the quick tip in Episode 124 of What Does This Button Do? Check it out to see exactly how it's done. We demonstrate on both iPhone and Android phone.

Android Bonus: Google Photos direct to wallpaper

The purpose of this article is to show how to download a photo from Google Photos online copy to your device. I used the example of setting a wallpaper, but there are lots of other reasons: there are other apps you may use for printing photos, editing photos, making collages and those apps may only work with photos that are on your device.

If wallpaper is your purpose - Android has an easier way! On an Android phone, you can open a photo in Google Photos, tap the 3-dot menu, and then Use As. You will see wallpaper as an option right there. So easy!

Chris Guld is President and Teacher-in-Chief at GeeksOnTour.com. She has been in computer training and support since 1983. She is now a Top Contributor for the Google Photos Forum, owner of the LearnGooglePhotos.com blog, and author of Mrs. Geek's Guide to Google Photos. She loves to teach! If you want to learn, you’ve come to the right place.